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The arrival of Jan. 1 will be a big event for President Barack Obama’s health care law — the day when Americans across the country can use their new health insurance for the first time. It could be a day of badly needed success stories, if people have a smooth time and sing the praises of their new private health insurance or Medicaid coverage.

But it could also be a day of hiccups, and if there’s any reality to some of the new problems health care analysts have been warning about — like people who thought they were covered but find out they’re not, or can’t sign up in time to replace their canceled coverage — that’s when we could start hearing about them.

If the Affordable Care Act can get through its first days of actual health coverage without big eruptions, the Obama administration may finally be able to move toward a narrative that focuses on how the law can work. But if it has to spend those days putting out more fires, the phrase “troubled rollout” won’t be going away anytime soon.

Here’s a guide to the “ruh roh” moments health care experts will be watching for next week:

Hey, I didn’t get signed up in time

One potential problem that’s getting a lot of White House attention, thanks to all of the canceled health insurance policies, is that there could be people who tried to replace their old coverage with insurance that meets Obamacare standards — but they couldn’t get it done in time and they’ll end up with no coverage on Jan. 1.

The Obama administration estimates that nearly half a million people may not have been able to replace their canceled coverage — not as many as there could have been, given the larger estimates of all canceled policies, but still a problem. And if they’re not taken care of, it won’t take long for the people who suddenly face a lapse in coverage to complain loudly about it and put real faces on the issue.

The administration has been scrambling to get on top of that problem. That’s one reason it suddenly pushed back the enrollment deadline by a day, letting people sign up as late as Tuesday — rather than Monday — so anyone stuck in last-minute Web traffic could still get health insurance through the federal Obamacare website.

Last week, it announced that anyone whose plan was canceled will be able to buy a catastrophic health plan — a cheaper, scaled-back insurance policy — if they haven’t been able to find another replacement. They’ll also be exempt from the law’s individual mandate, at least temporarily.

It has also extended the deadlines for people to enroll and persuade insurers to cut their new customers even more slack when they pay their first premium. America’s Health Insurance Plans, the main health insurance trade group, has announced that as long as people pay their premium by Jan. 10, insurers will consider them covered as of Jan. 1.

The problem, though, is that all of the last-minute rule changes could create confusion and add to the mounting stress on insurers to process late enrollments quickly — so some could still fall through the cracks.

“The concern about the constantly changing deadlines is that it’s going to make it more difficult to make sure people get enrolled in their coverage and that the coverage starts on Jan. 1,” said AHIP spokesman Robert Zirkelbach. “There’s a very short time period to do all the steps that are necessary to get people enrolled.”

For the Obama administration, the constant changes are an acceptable risk to get as many people enrolled as possible. Insurers and insurance regulators had been worried that not everyone would be able to finish signing up in time, even with the repairs to the federal website.

The threat of a coverage gap for a significant number of people is a “big concern,” said Ohio Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor, who also serves as the state’s insurance commissioner and is a vocal Obamacare critic.

Administration officials are less worried, noting that anyone who went to the trouble to buy individual health insurance — a difficult, time-consuming process — would be strongly motivated to replace it. But they’re watching the situation closely, and they say they’re trying to give people as many options as possible.

Many of the people with canceled policies could have replaced their coverage in other ways, like taking the replacements offered by their insurers or buying directly from other insurance companies. And Obama’s decision to allow insurers to extend old policies will help consumers in some states, though not all states are cooperating.

But the likelihood is that at least some would have needed to use the Obamacare website. Jon Kingsdale, a consultant who ran the Massachusetts health insurance exchange that predated Obamacare, said the relatively low enrollment numbers before December suggest that a lot of people may have tried to sign up and failed.

Hey, I thought I signed up

With all of the problems with the federal HealthCare.gov website, which serves 36 states, there’s a lingering possibility that people who thought they had signed up for coverage will find that their insurer has no record of them.

During the website’s rockiest weeks in October and early November, the “back end” of the site — the part insurers deal with — was spitting out error-filled enrollment records, and in some cases none at all. That raised fears of a repeat of the experience when Medicare Part D was launched, when seniors showed up at pharmacies to have their prescriptions filled and found that there was no record that they had coverage.

The Obama administration says its website repairs have pretty much stopped those errors, but that still leaves nearly 15,000 consumers who didn’t have an enrollment record generated at all.

The administration has been reaching out to consumers who have tried to sign up on HealthCare.gov, sending emails reminding them to pay their premium and to contact their insurer if they haven’t received an insurance card — a preventive measure in case the insurer didn’t get their records. But it won’t be clear until January whether the administration and insurers have managed to find all of those customers.

There are also a lot of variations on that theme, Kingsdale said: “‘I got my coverage, but my son didn’t. I got coverage, but it’s the wrong kind.’ That’s frankly not too unusual for the start of a big program like this.”

Even if that happens, the problems aren’t likely to be as urgent as they were with the Medicare Part D rollout, according to Alan Weil of the National Academy of State Health Policy. With that launch, huge numbers of low-income seniors were being switched from Medicaid to Medicare, and needed their prescriptions filled right away.

Molly Cooke, president of the American College of Physicians, said doctors will probably do what they usually do for patients who can’t prove they have health insurance: Set priorities, take care of the urgent care needs first, but try to postpone care that isn’t so time-critical.

For someone with high blood pressure who’s not sure whether their Obamacare coverage is in effect, for example, most doctors would say the patient needs to get started on antihypertensive drugs right away and the insurance can be sorted out later. But there’s “no real advantage” to getting other tests now, as opposed to waiting a month or two while their insurance status is worked out, Cooke said.